


Sound Asleep

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [523]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 21:45:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13280487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: For the TAG SeSa 2017: Nibenhutracycas requested "sleepy bros" and got a Five Things in return





	Sound Asleep

1) Technically, Scott is babysitting them.

Scott is thirteen, nominally a teenager and thus in a class apart from the rest of them, the  _kids_. Scott is already imagining learning how to drive, how to fly, imagining joining the adults at a dinner table where his feet fully touch the floor.

He’s much closer to the latter than the former.

But Scott is taking athletics and a starring role in the Mathletes team, already on the honor roll, and running for a spot on the student council. Scott is up before dawn to go run laps, stays at school late with study groups and to wallpaper the halls with his election posters, and a dozen other things John doesn’t think anyone else in this family fully understands.

John tiptoes in, one ear tuned to the sound of the movie from down the hall.  It sounds like it’s still holding everyone else’s attention, enough at least that they hadn’t noticed Scott disappearing to ‘study,’ or John following him out less than an hour later to go find out what he was really up to.

Scott’s snoring softly, his cheek resting against the now-dark tablet propped up on a stack of library books. John considers the scene, a simple three body problem when one of the bodies in question is fast asleep in a rolling desk chair.

Scott stirs slightly as his chair bumps into the side of his bed, but he’s more asleep than awake as John decants him onto the mattress. He’s fully asleep again in the time it takes John to untie his sneakers and toss a blanket across Scott’s legs.

He pauses at the door, checking the scene one last time. The lights go out with a click, and John pads back up the hall to sit on the little ones until their parents get home.

2) Virgil’s growth spurt hit with the speed of a freight train. Which is what John estimates he now weighs. “Ease up on the fruit loops, Virgil,” he mutters he tries to take more of the weight through his knees.

Virgil just tries to pat John’s cheek and misses, mussing up John’s hair instead. “You’re a good brother….” he slurs exhaustedly, swaying on the spot.

John exhales, recognizing the futility of his situation. “Who really, really didn’t want the top bunk,” he snaps, even as he gently lowers Virgil into the warm nest of blankets that had been John’s haven until Virgil had staggered in late and stood on John’s face instead of the ladder.

The bunks at the farmhouse feel insanely rickety, no matter how many times their mother insists they’re solid. John climbs up slowly, slipping between cold sheets and trying to ignore the sensation of swaying as, beneath him, Virgil starts snoring like a chain saw.

3) Gordon goes off like a firecracker, and fizzles just as fast. He’s still not lost his goofy grin though, even if he’s all but sprawled on the sofa, surrounded by the detritus of his victory party.

“How many potato chips did you eat?” John asks, impressed despite himself.

“Potato chips are not allowed from tomorrow on, so I ate them _all_ ,” Gordon beams sleepily.  “No regrets.”

“Your food baby might say otherwise,” John teases even as he drops down on the sofa next to Gordon. John loves his brother, but he doesn’t always like him, sixteen and too-confident in a way John still isn’t. But tired and full and teasing Gordon is probably Gordon at his most tolerable. “Congrats, by the way, if I didn’t say it before.  On making the squad.”

“Thanks, Jay,” Gordon says, sincere for once. He lets his head fall on John’s shoulder the second he’s in range. “To be honest,” he adds in a quieter voice.  “I still can’t believe I made it in. I mean, Maloney is faster…”

John’s hand is still long enough to cover even Gordon’s big mouth. “Shush,” he says firmly. “Belittling your achievements is my job. No poaching.” He can feel Gordon’s smile against his palm. “You made it, Gordon.  No one can take that away.”

Gordon nods, shuffling in to lean more heavily against John’s side. Everyone else has turned in; there are no witnesses. John slings an arm around Gordon’s shoulders and lets him rest before the madness begins again in earnest.

4) Kayo goes to ground when she feels vulnerable, hates sleeping with anyone else in the room. But for some reason, she tolerates the hologram. “Tell me about your day,” she asks, tucked up under too many blankets considering the tropical heat of the island.

John’s got a forest fire in Brazil, a tsunami alert active for Hakodate, and a stuck cave diver in Florida. But he’s always got time for his family. “I got to deliver a baby today. Well, the purser delivered, I just walked her through it….”

Kayo’s smiling by the time her eyes fall closed and stay that way. John keeps the line open anyway, just in case.

5) Space is exhausting. Only an astronaut can really appreciate how you can deplete every reserve trying to push against a resistance that isn’t there. It takes months of practice just to override the monkey instinct to trust gravity and friction to help you start and stop.

Alan’s yawn nearly splits his face, and John feels himself responding autonomously.  “Urgh, stop that.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Alan murmurs, his syllables almost slurring together. “Long day.”

John looks over the ash and scorch marks that still scored Alan’s uniform, a sign of how close he’d come. Three is in no state to go all the way back down, and neither is Alan. “Come on,” John says, grabbing Alan’s sash and towing him easily down Five’s core to the ring. He spins it up slowly, half-speed, just enough to draw their feet down onto the glass, give them a sense of ‘down’ at all. Even at half grav, Alan all but sags into John. “This way.”  

There are guest bunks in Five, still wrapped in plastic, and John doesn’t even bother with them. He just shoves Alan into the shower unit, takes the moment to swap uniform for soft pjs. They swap positions just long enough for John to swill the taste of bile off the back of his tongue. When he comes out again, Alan is still frowning, bare-chested, as he tries to figure out the arm holes of the soft, worn old NASA hoodie John had shoved at him in passing.

Dressing Alan reminds John of when Alan was tiny, relying on his brothers for everything, resisting his earlier bedtime in favour of crawling in with any sibling who’d let him. “Come on, Alan,” John says kindly as he tows Alan over and shoves him into his own bunk. It’s too narrow for two people, really, but they’re both slender men, and after today’s debacle, there was no way on Earth or off it John was letting the nightmares take Alan alone.

He wraps his arms and legs around Alan, almost pinning him against the bulkhead in a way he knew Alan found comforting. Alan’s breathing slows to match John’s.

John keeps up the rhythm until Alan finally falls asleep.


End file.
